by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Last night at 8 p.m. my husband Charles and I watched the
latest Lifetime “premiere,” The Killer in the Guest House, and despite some assets — notably a drop-dead
gorgeous hunk, Marcus Rosner, in the title role (and a lot of glimpses of him in as close to the altogether as
you can get on basic cable — yum!) — this was a pretty slovenly movie. If Killer
Prom was an example of the good way to use the premise of a demented lover who’s so
obsessed with his/her beloved s/he will literally kill anyone who stands in his/her way — The
Killer in the Guest House is an example of
what not to do with it. The
central character is aspiring photographer Rachel Vine (Corina Bizim, a pertly
pretty young woman who shows signs of being a good actress if she can get a
strong role, which this is not), who pursued a career in New York City until
her mom back in Wherever, America (“played,” almost inevitably in a Lifetime
movie, by Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the go-to location for the
Lifetime movies that aren’t shot
in Montréal!) got seriously ill. Rachel moved back in with mom (whom we never
see, not even in a flashback) and nursed her until mom died, leaving her a big
house in the country and a substantial mortgage payment. Rachel has been
supporting herself by doing free-lance photo work, most of it for Levon Startet
(Matthew Kevin Anderson), who was also her boyfriend until she broke up with
him just before the movie starts. He’s low-balling her on her fees for her
latest work for him and clearly trying to blackmail her into resuming their
relationship. Needing more money to keep her mom’s old house, she decides to
rent out the guest cottage and goes online to do so, lighting on the ad placed
by Mark James (Marcus Rosner) which includes a glowing review (undoubtedly
faked) from a previous landlord who rented to him that “we wished he could stay
forever.” Like many Lifetime villains of both genders, Mark couldn’t be nicer
when he shows up, cooking Rachel elaborate meals and coming on to her as the
epitome of charm. He mentioned having served in the U.S. military in
Afghanistan and he carries a black cloth case that looks like it contains a sniper rifle — it doesn’t, but it
does contain some portable
listening devices as well as cash and multiple passports (which ever since the
1941 film of The Maltese Falcon
have been a conventional movie device indicating that someone is not to be
trusted).
At first I was wondering if Mark’s secret was that once he left the
military, he’d become a contract killer to use the skills he’d acquired in the
military to make a living in the civilian economy — which could have made a
more interesting movie if the director, Tony Dean Smith (who is also the writer
and therefore, as I like to say when I don’t like a movie written and directed
by the same person, has no one to blame but himself), had gone with that
concept (even though something similar was done by Lifetime recently in a film
called My Husband’s Secret Life —
in that one the “secret” was that her husband was a Russian spy, though the
people who created the credits rather gave it away by printing the “R” in
“SECRET” backwards to make it look Cyrillic), he could have had a more
interesting movie than the one he ended up with. The one he ended up with was
an all too predictable tale in which Mark forms a romantic obsession with
Rachel and actually seduces her (giving us a soft-core porn scene in Rachel’s
shower that’s by far the most entertaining part of the movie!) after he’s
already murdered Levon and before he goes after the next alternate man in her life. The next alternate man in
her life is Robert Simms (Mark Humphrey), whom writer-director Smith goes out
of his way to make look sexy (despite his grey hair and obvious vintage, about
twice Rachel’s age — they went to the same high school but in different
decades, though Smith also tells us that back then Rachel already had a crush
on him from seeing his photo posted in the school halls as a particularly
illustrious alumnus) and appears to be Prince Charming to Rachel’s Cinderella.
He sees her portfolio and instantly offers her a high-paid, high-authority job
in his operation — I’d have believed it a lot more if Smith had made him a Harvey Weinstein type,
allegedly hiring Rachel for her talent but really wanting only her body — only Mark sees them kissing
in the parking lot of Simms’ building and takes his revenge.
He’s already tried
to kill Levon twice — first he
tried to strangle him, and when he turned out still to be alive he next locked
Levon into the big freezer in which Rachel keeps her film stock (yes, she’s
sufficiently retro that one-fifth of the way through the 21st
century she still shoots on film!) until he froze to death. Then he put Levon’s
body into what looks like a golf bag and played hide-and-seek with it,
ultimately burying it on the grounds of Simms’ home so he could frame Simms for
murdering Levon, after which he strangles Simms, then hangs him by a noose and
fakes a note so it will look like Simms committed suicide out of guilt for
having murdered Levon for the love of (or at least lust for) Rachel. Only the
police and the coroner are able to tell that Simms was strangled before he was hanged — for someone who served in the military
Mark seems weirdly incompetent as a murderer — and there’s a big final
confrontation in which Mark tries to kill Rachel the same way he first
(unsuccessfully) tried to kill Levon (by strangling her through pushing the
handle of a shovel across her neck), only she escapes (she’s a little slip of a
woman and he’s a big man in apparently excellent shape) and somehow overpowers
and kills him instead before the
police arrive and tell Rachel that “Mark James” wasn’t his real name and he has
a history in various U.S. cities of renting spaces from young single women,
obsessing over them and killing anyone else they might be interested in. I
really enjoyed looking at Marcus Rosner’s semi-clad body, but aside from that The
Killer in the Guest House was a pretty weak
movie, and even more frustrating than some other Lifetime movies in that there
were fascinating potential alternatives for Tony Dean Smith to steer his movie
to, and instead he regularly went for the dullest, most clichéd plot devices.
